Bayern flop voted worst player of 2017 by Onefootball users | OneFootball

2016 was a great year for Renato Sanches.

2017 has not been.

The young Portuguese midfielder won a big-money move to Bayern Munich 18 months ago after starring for Portugal during their victorious Euro 2016 campaign.

But he failed to establish himself in Bavaria and was loaned out to Swansea this past summer in an unusual transfer.

Sanches has had a miserable time at Swansea as well and has fallen out of the senior Portugal squad.

He’s played 90 minutes for Swansea only three times and in recent weeks he has been on the bench and even been left out of the matchday 18 altogether.

And it’s not as if Swansea are particularly good side. They currently sit bottom of the Premier League and are looking like strong candidates for relegation to the Championship.

Sanches’s decline has not gone unnoticed by Onefootball users.

A striking 54% of the 30,000+ voters for the 2017 Onefootball Awards selected Sanches as the worst performer of 2017.

He beat out Barcelona reject Arda Turan and Benfica’s on loan Inter disappointment Gabriel ‘Gabigol’ Barbosa, who finished in second and third place, respectively.

It’s a big fall from grace for a player who won the 2016 Golden Boy award as Europe’s most promising young player.

Fortunately for Sanches, he is still only 20 years old and has a lot of time to turn his career around.

But he will have to buckle down, work hard and find the right environment to allow him to thrive.

Whether that will be at Bayern remains to be seen.